“Eugene Thacker’s wonderful Horror of Philosophy series includes three books – In the Dust of this Planet (Zero Books, 2011), Starry Speculative Corpse (Zero Books, 2015), and Tentacles Longer than Night (Zero Books, 2015) – that collectively explore the relationship between philosophy (especially as it overlaps with demonology, occultism, and mysticism) and horror (especially of the supernatural sort). Each book takes on a particular problematic using a particular form from the history of philosophy, from the quaestio, lectio, and disputatio of medieval scholarship, to shorter aphoristic prose, to productive “mis-readings” of works of horror as philosophical texts and vice versa. Taken together, the books thoughtfully model the possibilities born of a comparative scholarly approach that creates conversations among works that might not ordinarily be juxtaposed in the same work: like Nishitani, Kant, Yohji Yamamoto, and Fludd; or Argento, Dante, and Lautréamont. Though they explore topics like darkness, pessimism, vampiric cephalopods, and “black tentacular voids,” these books vibrate with life and offer consistent and shining inspiration
For Thacker’s brand-new book Cosmic Pessimism (published by Univocal with a super-groovy black-on-black cover) go here. Thacker is co-teaching a course with Simon Critchley on “Mysticism” at the New School for Social Research this fall 2015. You can check out the description here.”
http://nbnseminar.com/2015/09/28/eugene-thacker-horror-of-philosophy-zero-book-2011-2015/
I guess nihilism should explore itself thoroughly, it’s nightmares. That’s good. We need a good forensics of the dead subject
yep, a good alienist leaves no stone unturned
Damn. I think I’d love to do that course. If mysticism is positioned as a possible material outcome of playing with neural rhythms then Id be up for it.
i wish they would record such seminars like Stiegler and his wife (i think) do:
I’ll add that to my Watch List. I’ll also try to post on Thacker’s trilogy once I get round to rereading it (as part of my self-designed pessimism course: Intro to Despair) & Cosmic Pessimism. Paul Ennis was writing a review of it and basically felt like “yeh, i agree”. so that’s an indication of the bleakness.